Remote Email Access

Most email users will at times find themselves away from their home/home office and still want access to their email.

Remote access to email is possible using  several different methods, some well established and emerging new ones.

We will be looking at three scenarios

• Accessing your email on your laptop from another location.
• Accessing your email from another computer at another location
• Accessing your email on a mobile phone

However deciding on which method to employ or which method you can employ involves getting a basic grasp of email. In order to setup your computer or another computer for remote access you need a grasp of.

• What is a email client
• What is an email account
• Where email is stored

If you want to make sure that you understand the basics then take a look email overview before continuing.

Your Email Provider

Your email provider will have a big impact on the options you have when it comes to retrieving your email.

There are two methods used

• Browser base i.e. Webmail
• POP3/IMAP4 based using clients like Outlook Express

Most email providers will provide both. However for those using free email accounts from either yahoo, Microsoft or Gmail you should note that only Gmail provides both access types for free.

Hotmail and Yahoo mail only provide pop3 access for paid email accounts.

The first scenario we will look at is the easiest to understand and the easiest to setup.

Important Note: This information isn't meant for corporate email users. If you are trying to access company email away from a corporate location then you need to talk to your email administrator.

This is because large corporations have their own email servers and they don't allow access to them from users outside the corporate network.

Remote  Email Access on Your Laptop from Another Location.

You can access you email either via webmail (if supported by your email host) and this is the easiest option as all you need to do is to connect to the internet which you can do in three different ways.

1. Plug your computer into the company network
2. Connect to the company network or public network using WI-FI
3. Use a Dial up connection.

If you don't want to or can't use webmail and you decide to use your normal email client like outlook express then you should note the following:

Even though your email accounts are already configured you may encounter problems sending email when using either option 1 or 2 to connect to the Internet. Usually receiving works ok.

If this is the case then try enabling authentication on the SMTP settings of the email account (advanced setting). This doesn't always work as many SMTP providers examine the IP address and expect to see their IP address, but your computer is on another network with a totally different IP address.

If this is the case then you need to send your email through a service provider that doesn't examine the IP address but instead relies on authentication.

You can use a Gmail account (best), Yahoo or Hotmail account ( only paid accounts).

The third case of using a dial up is actually the easiest, as if it works from home on a dial up it will work from anywhere. The only problem is getting a dialup account.

When I moved to broadband a few years ago I kept a pay as you go dial up account as it contained my main email address. This type of account is ideal as you don't pay for it unless you use it.

There are other more complex and yet very useful ways which I will cover in Creative uses of free Email accounts at a later date.

Remote Email Access Your  from Another Computer at Another Location

In this scenario you could be using a friends computer or a co-workers computer or an Internet cafe computer.

The biggest problem you have here is security. The best way to access is via web mail as this type of access was designed for remote access and is relatively secure.

However if you can't access via Webmail or want to access you mail using outlook express on your friends computer as perhaps you will be away for a while then you should note the following:

• The remote computer will need the appropriate client software installed (outlook express is installed by default)
• You Will need to create a new account to access your mail.
• You will need to take steps so that the mail is also kept so that you can retrieve it on your home computer when you return.
• You will need to take steps not to mix your email with your friends.
• You will need to remember to remove the account before you leave (unless you return frequently).

Because there are so many things to consider i don't recommend it but I will be putting together a detailed tutorial on how to do it shortly.

See Access Email From Another Location/Computer

Accessing Your Email on a Mobile Phone

This is quite a new area and requires a mixture of device technology and Phone provider services. See Mobile phone email access

Questions?

Please use the contact form if you have any questions. I will be adding a FAQ section to the end of this article with the questions/answers.